Dubbed later the “Resurrection” symphony, Mahler’s Second Symphony explores the non-musical subject of death. Mahler seems to have been preoccupied with death and the fear of annihilation—many of his symphonies and Lieder treat the subject with varying degrees of faith and despair. Confronted continually with the loss of many friends and loved ones, Mahler may have used his compositions to work out those difficult issues for himself. Burnett James comments, “The Second Symphony was [Mahler’s] attempt to recreate faith and the hope of salvation. In the circumstances, it could not be a logical, moderate, considered, dispassionate search; it had to be an immoderate, illogical, profoundly passionate questing in which doubt and despair confronted the longing for assurance and reassurance. Faith had, for Mahler, to be created out of a tragic awareness.”